“An Imbecile in conversation with a God!”

For those who endure it, slut sham­ing is hard to con­cep­tu­al­ize in a few words. From cold stares, and fix­at­ed crit­i­cism to bla­tant name-call­ing, slut-sham­ing priv­i­leges patri­ar­chal-het­ero­nor­ma­tive con­trol and domes­tic­i­ty over our bod­ies and minds. It tries to put us “in our prop­er places”- places that are des­ig­nat­ed and assigned by those in pow­er. While it overt­ly hap­pens in the streets- some­thing we may have become immune to in the con­text of Pak­istan- more slut-sham­ing hap­pens in our pri­vate spaces, often at the hands of our seem­ing­ly loved ones. In that, the tra­jec­to­ry of slut-sham­ing isn’t that dif­fer­ent from rape: it does­n’t just hap­pen out of mali­cious impulse, rather it is embed­ded in pre-medi­at­ed attempts to trim our wings and cage us, which may result in induc­ing trau­ma to the suf­fer­er.

The per­son who shames us is often some­one we have dif­fi­cul­ty deny­ing our love to, sim­ply because we are bur­dened with love for them. It is one of those con­tra­dic­tions we must come to terms with in our pri­vate rela­tion­ships, which are based in feu­dal lean­ings. To tell a male, elder­ly fam­i­ly mem­ber, who stares at our breasts, to keep his gaze off our bod­ies is dis­re­spect­ful; to tell an aunt that her malig­nant com­ments are unwel­come is deemed inap­pro­pri­ate. Yet, they damp­en our esteem in pass­ing, as if the com­ments and gazes lev­eled at us bear no con­se­quences to our con­science, to the lives we choose to live. In their roles, they press their love on us, and feel enti­tled in telling us how to feel, how to respond to stim­uli, how to be. Slut-sham­ing prof­its from and gains locus in a cul­ture that pro­motes not only men­tal sub­servience to norms estab­lished by men in pow­er, but also fos­ters phys­i­cal adher­ence to patri­ar­chal con­structs. It says to its sexual/gender minori­ties: “clean your mind, low­er your gaze and slow your breath­ing because your chest must not throb”. Pre­fer­ring stooped pos­tures over assertive­ness, it tells us we invite those stares and com­ments.

To defeat slut-sham­ing, you have to endorse shame as shame is, vul­ner­a­ble and histri­on­ic, and dis­robe it to yield the com­mon­ness between your­self and it. Here’s to poet­ic-vers­ing the shame out.

Imbe­cile In Con­ver­sa­tion With a God

She called me Imbe­cile three times:

(You are an Imbe­cile! You are an Imbe­cile! You are an Imbe­cile!)

Furled my inno­cence to throw out of the win­dow,
tore my garb off my body
and cut a thou­sand holed tent out of it,
then hung it on the bam­boo for her crows to rest in;

She threw sewage waste on my face to hide my pres­ence,
put burn­ing coal on my palms to deplete my sins,
lashed and whipped me hun­dred times to do me good;

She exposed my breasts for loafers to feed at,
shucked my cli­toris and stuffed it with hes­s­ian of poi­son,
pecked at my organs with nee­dles soaked in piss-dung;

She led me to believe in her
Supreme Benef­i­cence.

But I sur­vived.
I sur­vived to feed her crows.

Poem: Imbe­cile in con­ver­sa­tion with a god from S Jan­jua on Vimeo.

Image: Lal­la Essay­di